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A SERMON", 



COMMEMORATIVE OF 



NATIONAL BLESSINGS, 

PREACHED IN THE CENTRAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 

APEIL 13, 1862. 



THE DAT RECOMMENDED BY TIIE PRESIDENT OF TIIE UNITED STATES 
AS AN OCCASION OF SPECIAL THANKSGIVING FOR RECENT 
NATIONAL VICTORIES, AND OF PRATER FOR THE 
WOUNDED AND THE BEREFT, AND FOR FUR- 
THER BLESSINGS ON OUR CAUSE. 



BY REV. F. F. ELLINWOOD, 

PASTOR OF THE CHURCH. 



ROCHESTER, N. Y. 

PUBLISHED BT REQUEST. 

1862. 



tA 

.% 



Rev. F. F. Ellinwood ; 

Bear Sir .-—The undersigned were highly pleased with your 
discourse delivered in the Central Presbyterian Church of this city, on Sab- 
bath morning, the 13th inst. Many others have also expressed great satisfac- 
tion in that discourse and, with us, desire to see it published. Will you, 
therefore, have the kindness to furnish us with a copy for publication ? 
Respectfully, 

Geo. W. Parsons, 
A. M. Hastings, 
J. E. Hatdon, 
E. Child, 
Rochester, April 21st, 1862. 



Frederick Starr, 
Wm. Alling, 
J. H. Brewster, 
Wm. A. Hubbard. 



Geo. W. Parsons, A. M. Hastings, and others : 

Dear Brethren.— I defer to your judgment and accede to your 
request, appreciating the kindly spirit in which it is made. The discourse 
named in your note is herewith placed at your disposal. 
I remain your ob't servant, 

F. F. Ellinwood. 
Rochester, April 24, 1862. 






». ST«0NO k CO., fdlKlBM, AOCHESTER, H. V. 



SEEMOK 



"Lord, thou hast been favorable unto thy land." Ps. 85: 1. " For the 
shields of the earth belong unto God." Ps. 47 : 9. 

Every blessing which God confers upon us is worthy of thanks- 
giving. Coming from Him it is a religious gift, demanding a 
religious gratitude, and is therefore a suitable theme for thought 
or discussion at any time or place. 

Some one has said that true piety consists not so much in doing 
specified religious things distinctively, as in doing the common 
things of life — all things — in a religious way. Whatever is re- 
ferred to God, done for Him, ascribed to Him, is a part of every 
day religion. The battle with the Amelekites was as truly a 
work of faith as the erection of the tabernacle. 

The Chief Magistrate of these United States has called upon 
us to mingle in our worship to-day the joyous notes of praise to 
God for national blessings, and the expressions of prayerful sym- 
pathy for those by whom our common triumphs have been dearly 
purchased. Our hearts respond to this timely proclamation. We 
feel that there is a greatly accumulated indebtedness to the God 
of battles, before whom months ago this nation so solemnly 
spread out her pressing wants ; and there is no reason why such 
blessings should not be acknowledged in the same devout spirit as 
if they had been conquests of another kind. 

We have perhaps for some time past looked too exclusively 
upon the human aspects of the great rebellion, and the merely 
human probabilities of its suppression. We have learned to read 
■of victories, and only victories, and to praise men for them — and 
such praise is just in its true subordination — but we have, in some 
degree, forgotten to appreciate the help of God. I rejoice, there- 
fore, that the President has again recalled public attention to a 
religious consideration of our affairs — turned our thoughts from 
the newspaper, the map, the daily and hourly discussion of meas- 



ures and chances and prospects, to Him who is the sole author of 
good, and who must still be our supreme trust. I rejoice, too, 
in the fact that amid the hardening influences of war, rendering 
men forgetful of, if not indifferent to, the misery and suffering 
which even victory costs, he has appealed to the people to remem- 
ber specially in their prayers and sympathies the wounded, the 
impoverished, and the bereaved. I rejoice, moreover, that for 
future successes he enjoins upon us still to look to God who 
orders the circumstances and weighs the chances of the battle- 
field, and who can ordain either victory or defeat. 

It is very certain that as a people we do not realize the wonder- 
ful transformations through which we have passed within one 
short year and a half. 

European nations, who have so often wondered at our excitabil- 
ity, might now stand amazed — as they do in fact — at the quiet, 
matter-of-course way in which we sit down at our firesides and 
read, two or three times a day, of new victories that affect the 
destinies of millions, and still move calmly on our way without 
an hour's interruption of business or a moment's loss of sleep. 

It may be doubted whether the American character can ever 
be fully and satisfactorily explained on any hypothesis or by any 
theory. At least, the strange and unexpected phases which it 
has exhibited within the last two or three years have defied and 
confounded all generalizations and speculations and vaticinations. 
And it is no matter of surprise, that the able correspondent of a 
foreign journal, after spending many months in attempts at Amer- 
ican portraiture, has at length retired from the field and the un- 
dertaking in despair. Still we do not greatly regret this versatil- 
ity of character ; for if only our uprisings be not faithless toward 
Heaven, and our quiet acceptance of glorious events be not want- 
ing in devout gratitude and appreciation, we may look for a time 
when these diversified elements will be fused into a nation;]] char- 
acter the more vigorous for its almost contradictory constituents. 
If the favor of God attend our development all will be well. 

In order the more clearly to understand how great things a 
favoring Providence has done for us, let us compare our present 
condition as a people with that in which wc have found ourselves 
at three different periods within eighteen months. 

J. — Wc recur to the autumn of 18G0, and the winter that 
followed — that dark period when* every man that loved his couu- 



try was heart-sick at the calamities that had actually overtaken 
her, and at the clouds of still darker portent that lowered threat- 
eningly all around her horizon. 

Ou the 20th of December, 1860, the State Convention of South 
Carolina, by a unanimous vote of one hundred and sixty-nine, 
drove the first entering wedge of secession into the trembling 
fabric of our National Union. By the aid of the magnetic wires, 
(which should never have been cursed by such a use,) the entire 
Republic was made to feel the shock almost at the same hour. 
That very day, Mr. Garnet of Virginia, rose in the House of Rep- 
resentatives and insolently announced to the Speaker that " one of 
the sovereign states of this confederacy had, by the glorious act of 
her people, withdrawn from the union," and so low and abject had 
the spirit of the American Congress become that Southern mem- 
bers were allowed to applaud this treasonable announcement with- 
out even a word of protest. That evening the bell-ringings and 
bonfires, and mass meetings witnessed in other state capitals and 
chief cities of the South gave full proof that the work of dissolu- 
tion had begun in earnest. 

In rapid succession commissioners passed from State to State, 
openly inviting fellowship in treason ; conventions were called by 
every means, constitutional or otherwise, and State after State was 
formally numbered with the rebel " confederacy." Forts, arsen- 
als, dockyards, &c, belonging to the United States were forcibly 
seized, and treason in the departments, in the army and the navy, 
became so common that a bewildered people knew not in whom 
of all their public servants it was safe to trust. 

Leading men of the nation were even then secretly negotiating 
in other lands for the munitions of war, and courting foreign sym- 
pathy and help in the ruin of their country. 

Meanwhile members of the cabinet, under solemn oaths of 
office, one after another resigned, revealing their gigantic frauds 
as they withdrew. One, whose name it were almost a profanity 
to utter, had stripped the national armories for the ends of trea- 
son, and another had purposely embarrassed and crippled our 
finances with the same design. Senators still under pay of the 
government, used their whole influence to thwart and weaken that 
government, and when neither acts nor insolent words could ac- 
complish more, they disdainfully withdrew to take up the sword 
in the desperate cause of national ruin. Hope seemed well nigh 



6 

extinct, — the more so, as the chief executive of the government 
proved but the pitiable embodiment of imbecility. The adminis- 
tration was utterly paralized and worthy of contempt, the people 
were bewildered, the world astonished. Foreign jealousy pro- 
nounced, with ill-disguised satisfaction, the sentence of our national 
doom, and wrote already our praiseless epitaph ; and the snows 
of winter, then just gathering over our beloved land, seemed the 
winding sheet of all that we had so highly prized. 

Though we had a strong confidence that God would in His own 
time and way, solve this strange problem for the ultimate ad- 
vancement of civilization and the good of His own cause, yet it 
seemed a long, dark process that must accomplish it. Human 
sagacity was foiled and baffled. Peace conventions were mere 
child's play ; and compromises, however numerously proposed, 
however skilfully framed, however strongly backed by petitions, 
pleased nobody, accomplished nothing, and only afforded time for 
the enemy to mature his plans and perfect his preparations. 

" Will the new President be successfully inaugurated 1 Can he 
be 1" were questions which at length assumed a very grave 
aspect, for foul conspiracies were on foot, and the national capitol 
was threatened with destruction. Moreover, the disease of the 
Republic, as Cicero would call it, seemed not merely local but 
constitutional and all-pervading. A secret cabal, worse than 
Cataline's, w r as every where present. There were treasonable 
men and treasonable presses in every State in the Union, and the 
South hoped that corruption enough would be found in the North 
to aid and abet the work of dissolution even to entire success. 

The last days of February came, and for the first time in our 
history a President elect was compelled to enter the national cap- 
ital secretly to elude the assassin's deadly thrust. It was our 
darkest hour. Never since her first great struggle for political 
existence had our country been so cloven down and humbled in 
the dust before the nations. 

Now. as we turn from those dark and ill-boding scenes to the 
spectacle which our country presents to-day, and mark the con- 
trast seen at Washington, and indeed everywhere, and as we 
remember how little of all this our short foresight could then have 
even conceived or hoped for, how shall we express adequately our 
gratitude lor what God foresaw and has thus Car accomplished'? 

" What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward 



me ? I will take the cup of salvation and call upon His name. 
I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all 
His people." 

II. — There is another period with which we will contrast our 
present condition. One year ago this day, the 13th of April, 
Port Sumpter was reduced. One year ago to-day that brave gar- 
rison of seventy men, worn and famished, and preventing suffo- 
cation only by wet cloths upon their faces, yielded at length, 
though honorably, their position to a numerous foe. There is 
something dreamlike in the retrospect, as we recall the events 
that so rapidly followed that day, and the spirit that pervaded 
different parts of the land. The South were jubilant, not under- 
standing yet the able strategy by which their arms had been pur- 
posely diverted from an assault upon the capital at the mere cost 
of a Southern fort, and at the same time the full responsibility of 
beginning the war laid at their door. Nothing could exceed the 
complacency and hopefulness of the conspirators, and the arro- 
gance and contempt with which the old union was treated by the 
rebel press after the " brilliant victory" of Fort Sumpter. 

The step had been taken thus hastily as a means of uniting the 
South, but, alas ! for the rebellion, it had in an astonishing manner 
united the North. Had the fatal lethargy of the loyal States been 
suffered to continue undisturbed, the slow and insiduous poison of 
disunion might have accomplished its most destructive work, but 
with the first shock of actual war the great North awoke, and that 
very hour the real hope of secession perished. 

The true friends of the Union were everywhere roused as one 
man ; party was forgotten ; all waste of time with compromises 
was at an end. Lurking treason in loyal States was compelled to 
hide its head, money and men were offered on every hand, and 
within three days the administration saw that which it desired to 
see more than all things else — saw itself firmly and nobly sustain- 
ed by the unanimous, devoted, sublime patriotism of a perfectly 
united people. 

Still whatever assurance this grand uprising might give of ulti- 
mate success, there was for the time most imminent danger. On 
the 15th of April, two days after the fall of Sumpter, President 
Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for seventy-five thousand 
volunteers, and commanding all rebellious combinations to dis- 
perse within twenty days — a command which, though not very 



8 

likely to be obeyed, still had the effect to stamp the insurrection 
with its true character, as such, before the country and the world. 
While from the free States the response to the call for volunteers 
was prompt and hearty, the governors of Missouri, Kentucky and 
Tennessee (where are those governors now ?) returned insulting 
refusals which seemed little better, and finally proved no better, 
than open endorsements of the rebel cause. Then came on days 
and nights of most fearful anxiety. Washington was in im- 
minent danger, and must at all cost be garrisoned. The de- 
partments must be sifted of traitors ere it should prove too late. 
Baltimore and Maryland must be opened for the passage of 
troops, an army must be created and hastened on to the seat of 
war, secret intrigues must be ferreted out and their telegraphic 
communications seized upon and broken up ; and not the least of 
all, our foreign relations required to be readjusted, and the world 
to be convinced that, as a nation, we still intended to live. 

Meanwhile the commercial interests of the country were well- 
nigh paralyzed. Securities in many States had become utterly 
worthless, and of course involved the failure of countless banks. 
Southern repudiation, too, added its outrages to the general dis- 
tress, and thousands who had lived in affluence were reduced to 
penury. 

We look back with shuddering upon those anxious days, even 
as they were known to us here in Rochester, and we have never 
realized a tithe of the sacrifices and sufferings of this war as com- 
pared with other places ; yet even here an ill-boding solicitude 
was felt by us all, so deep and so heavy that we pray God that 
we and our country may forever be spared from its recurrence. 

Nor would we willingly repeat the experiences of the period 
immediately following that just named — the period of flags and 
intemperate and wasteful zeal, of shoddy outfits and superfluous 
pistols, of crude civil soldiering and newspaper generalship, of 
congressional pressure and so-called "political necessities," of gen- 
eral vain confidence and Godless irreverence, and all those untow- 
ard influences which led finally to the sad culmination of a Sunday 
battle at Bull Run. We contrast the present with those two or 
three months, and are astonished to see how much the lessons of 
so brief a history have done for us. The nation seems as a power 
at least — to have passed from the flash and frivolity of a crude 
boyishness to the solid maturity of manhood in the short space of 



a few months. Never had there been such symptoms of weak- 
ness as then : never have there been such proofs of power as now. 
At no former period in our whole history have we been in a posi- 
tion that promised so well for the stability of our institutions as 
to-day. These institutions have always won for themselves a the- 
oretic commendation. They have been thought, by friends at 
least, to be happily and wisely framed. Fourth of July orators 
have exalted and glorified them with no fear of refutation, for 
previous to all severe tests they flourished of course. But never 
till now have we been able, before friend and foe, to pronounce 
them fully adequate to the most trying ordeals that a nation is 
ever called to meet. We have not perished, as was predicted, by 
the impatience of the mob. We have not been wrecked by finan- 
cial panic and bankruptcy, as was so ably planned for us by the 
foreign journals. We have not rebelled at taxation, and it is to 
be hoped that few of our citizens will be found sordid enough 
even to raise a murmur. Public confidence in the government 
has not failed, and now, even while our wide domain is being 
shaken by two or three battles, a week commerce is steadily re- 
viving. By the favor of God we have been the first among 
nations to disclose a patriotism that can array three quarters of a 
million of volunteers, and despised as we were a few months since, 
the inventive genius and fearful prowess of our iron " cheese box" 
have virtually demolished the wooden hulks of all Europe's 
boasted navies. 

We will not speak exultingly, (for surely we have been low in 
the dust,) but with encouragement and gratitude. 

We have been in the furnace not in vain. Much dross has 
already been removed, and we hope that when that end comes 
which will come, much that yet remains will have been purged 
away. 

And one noticeable improvement which we see in contrast- 
ing the present with the period last referred to, is that which per- 
tains to the public recognition of God's law. The war, so far as 
we are concerned, is now being conducted in a manner more in 
accordance with Christian principles. Let me read, just here, 
from one of our secular papers — a copy of the New York Times 
published two days since. I always like to quote such testimony 
from secular papers, because I regard it as one of the hopeful 



10 

features of our country and our age. It is taken from an edito- 
rial article, entitled " Sunday Battles" and reads as follows : 

" The late terrible struggle at Pittsburgh adds another to the long list of 
Sunday battles. The facts are so clear in this and numerous other conflicts, 
and the results have been so uniform and decisive, that comment is not only 
warranted but demanded, alike by philosophy, patriotism and piety. The 
general statement can not be gainsaid, that the more important movements 
of the National forces, in the early stages of the present war, were made on 
Sunday ; and that they were undeniable failures. Patterson's column was 
constantly notorious for its manouvering on Sundays — and for little else. Big 
Bethel, Bull Run, and Ball's Bluff were the great blunders and defeats of 
attacking armies on Sunday. All these engagements, excepting Ball's Bluff, 
under the now imprisoned Gen. Stone, preceded Gen. McClellan's noble Sab- 
bath order. Thenceforward the rebels have made the Sunday assaults, with 
invariable loss of the battles thus waged. Mill Spring opened their career of 
Sunday fighting, which closes with Pittsburgh. The battle of Winchester 
was begun on Sunday morning. The first of these battles cost the rebels 
Kentucky ; the second, the valley of Virginia ; and the third, the Mississippi 
valley. The Merrimac, too, after its destructive Saturday's raid, ran a muck 
against the Monitor on Sunday, and has spent a month in repairing damages. 

"Add to the facts, that most of the Generals commanding, whose names 
figure as assailants in these battles, were slain in them, or are in disgrace on 
account of them, and there is food for reflection in these bits of history. 
What has become of our Gen. Pierce, of Big Bethel memory ? What of 
Gen. Stone ? Where are Zollicoffer and Sydney Johnston ? In short, since 
we have ceased the business of Sunday fighting, and the rebels took it up, 
we have had only victories to record, and they only defeats and surrenders. 
Fort Donelson and Island No. 10 were our Sunday morning benison on week- 
day prowess. 

"Nor are these isolated historical facts. History is full of them. The 
British forces assailed us on Lake Champlain and at New Orleans on Sunday, 
and were defeated. We assailed them at Quebec ; our army was repulsed 
and its leader slain. We began the battle of Monmouth, and had the worst 
of it. Napoleon began the battle of Waterloo, and lost his army and his 
empire. 

" We content ourselves with the simple collation of these euggestive facts. 
Let them go to swell that mighty volume of testimony to the supremacy and 
stability of a law as old as creation, which claims quite other use of one-sev- 
enth part of time than the work of willing human butchery." 

Brethren, let us thank God fur these facts, and for this recog- 
nition of them by an influential political paper. Have we not 
great encouragement to pray that when the last cloud of war shall 
have passed from the sky, and the last booming thunders of civil 
strife shall have wasted their echoes into silence, we may see the 
claims of all religious truth established on a firmer basis among 
us than ever before ! 



11 

III. — I wish to contrast the present hour with still another 
period embraced within the past few months. All know how the 
year 1862 began. A new and darker storm had appeared rapidly 
gathering over the sea. After having, as we supposed, passed 
through the most trying stages of this great civil war, and settled 
into the quiet and uniform belief that the rebellion would be suc- 
cessfully put down, we were threatened with a vaster and more 
ruinous struggle with Great Britain. 

By an unforeseen circumstance we seemed driven to the alter- 
native of choosing between a foreign war or submission to an 
arrogance intent upon our humiliation and disgrace. Whether 
there could be an honorable escape from the dilemma was a grave 
question. On the north of us as well as on the south were bitter 
animosities and warlike preparations. All Europe looked with 
intense interest upon the " situation," and trembled at the possibly 
fatal result to us. Americans abroad probably never before ex- 
perienced so much of anxiety and suspense — not to say shame 
and reproach for their country's sake. And even when the one 
fruitful cause of strife had been removed it was still felt that 
some other — a pretext at least — would be found, and that we 
should yet have war. The blockade of southern ports was looked 
upon with growing impatience by the commerce of Europe, and 
as very little had been accomplished for some months toward 
quelling the rebellion, there was apparently great reason to fear 
that foreign interference would sooner or later complicate our 
affairs. 

What, then, has a favoring Providence done for us in three 
months'? The last threatening indication of a foreign war has 
been swept away, the question of breaking the blockade has been 
decided in the negative by both England and France. Our neigh- 
bors over in Canada have relaxed their evening drill and become 
our admirers, and everywhere the preponderance of outside opin- 
ion and sympathy, after so much oscillation, appears to have set- 
tled at length into a fixed conclusion against a pro-slavery rebel- 
lion and in favor of the stars and stripes. 

Meanwhile a series of successes seldom if ever equalled in the 
history of warfare, has crowned the national arms. Since the 1st 
of January, or within less than a hundred days, we have had 
recorded the victorious battles of Pikeville, Mill Spring, Fort 
Henry, Roanoke Island, Fort Donelson, the strategic reduction of 



12 

Bowling Green, the occupation of Nashville, the advance on Mar- 
tinsburgh, Leesburgh and Charlestown, the decisive battle of Win- 
chester, the raising of the Potomac blockade, the bloodless reduc- 
tion of Columbus, the terrible but decisive battle of Pea Ridge, 
the forced evacuation of Manassas, the taking of New Madrid, 
the strikingly providential arrest and vanquishment of the Merri- 
mack, the storming of Newbern, the capture of Fernandina and 
other places on the Florida and Georgia coasts, the taking of 
Beaufort, the wonderful successes at Island No. 10, and last of all, 
the close and sanguinary but decisive battle at Pittsburgh Land- 
ing. 

Now we are a very nervous people, and while God has given 
us this unparalleled series of successes in our country's cause — 
more than a score in number — there are doubtless not a few who 
feel that the number should have been fifty instead of twenty ; 
and had it been fifty, they would probably say a hundred. But 
God grant that we may not tempt Him with unreasonableness 
and ingratitude after such manifestations of His favor ! 

This is certainly making history very fast. Many and great 
have been our successes, let us not the less appreciate them be- 
cause they are many. 

That which we prayed for months ago, and have continued 
to pray for from time to time, has in great part been fulfilled : let 
it be this day joyfully and gratefully acknowledged. 

Nor will we forget the numerous circumstances which have 
peculiarly illustrated our dependence on the help of God in secur- 
ing these results. 

Proof after proof has been afforded of the weakness and short- 
sightedness of men even in their best endeavors. Storms at sea 
threatened to destroy, and might have destroyed, each of the two 
great naval expeditions to the Atlantic coast. But for a favoring 
Providence the fate of the great Spanish armada might have been 
their fate. Again, at the battle of Winchester, if the enemy's 
reinforcements had reached the field in time, Ave should have been 
defeated ; while, at Pittsburgh Landing, if our reinforcements had 
not arrived in time we should have been defeated. 

Again, but for the providential coincidence (it was merely such) 
that brought the Monitor to Hampton Roads just in the hour of 
need, the utmost devastation might have been carried into our 
navy and, perhaps, our great seaport towns. And what shows 



13 

peculiarly on how many unforeseen influences a victory may de- 
pend, and how little, therefore, can be predicted by any but the 
All-seeing One, is the significant fact that in all the great engage- 
ments of this war, the party which seemed for a time victorious, 
and was confident of entire success, has at last been vanquished. 
It was so at Bull Kun ; it was so at Pea Ridge ; it was so at 
Pittsburgh Landing. Indeed every commander, however great 
his skill and however numerous and brave his forces, has always 
reason to feel, when entering the battlefield, that there are ele- 
ments of success — chances, if you please — which lie entirely 
above his reach and beyond his control. And this being true we, 
in our safe homes and churches are called upon to look constantly 
for Divine guidance and help on behalf of our officers and our 
troops. 

But in looking over the various aspects of this great struggle 
through which our country is passing, I recall some matters of 
thanksgiving not contemplated in the public proclamation. The 
President has called upon us to make grateful acknowledgment 
of our victories by sea and land, and our escape from foreign in- 
tervention. 

But I think we ought to thank God for the President himself — 
so wise and intrepid a helmsman in this unparalleled storm. He 
was placed in office, humanly speaking, by a party, but in another 
view far above parties, he was raised up of God for these eventful 
times. The force of events, the co-operatiou of all patriotic men 
of whatever name, and especially the favoring hand of Provi- 
dence, have borne him above all platforms to the noble and sub- 
lime work of saving a great nation from peril. 

Since the days of Washington so urgent and difficult a crisis 
has not appeared ; since the days of Washington so remarkable 
an adaptation of a great man to a great mission has not appeared. 
We find in our honored executive no one striking element of 
genius, perhaps, but he presents what is better, the happy union 
of strong common sense, great prudence on delicate and difficult 
questions, undaunted coolness in perplexity, and an energy of de- 
cision that can, when need be, take the responsibility and move 
forward, and make others move. This choice combination of 
striking characteristics, how seldom found ! And we bless God 
that He has united them all in the character of one whom He has 
ordained and schooled for the peculiar requisitions of this hour. 



14 

And in connection with onr avoidance of foreign intervention, 
which is named in the proclamation, do we not owe a debt of 
gratitude to Him who made and endowed all men, for our able 
and successful diplomacy with other powers during the past few 
months 1 

It is not necessary for you or for me to be in all respects an 
admirer of our Secretary of State, but I know that there is candor 
enough in this audience for a perfectly unanimous acknowledg- 
ment of that masterly statesmanship of which the nation may 
well be proud, and which, divinely ordained as we believe it was 
for this peculiar international crisis, should call forth our thanks- 
giving and praise to God. 

Another thing which we should not fail to note with grateful 
satisfaction, is the series of judicious steps which have been taken 
with regard to Slavery. "What could have been more difficult 
than to treat properly this delicate matter in the present juncture 
of our affairs 1 The sentiment of Europe, and the hot haste of a 
fanatical few in this country, have constantly pressed the subject 
of emancipation, at whatever cost to the general objects of the 
War. On the other hand, the advancement of opinion in the bor- 
der States has been exceedingly slow in reaching even its present 
stage — demanding not only great prudence, but frequently a delay 
even in that which the government had a right to do at once. 
But what have we seen to admire and rejoice at 1 In the first 
place, the strict adherence of the administration to thoroughly 
constitutional ground in all measures whatever ; in the second 
place, the proposal to gradually purchase the slaves of such States, 
and such States only, as might desire to dispose of them ; in the 
third place, the act passed by so large a vote for the abolition of 
slavery in the District of Columbia, and, in the fourth place, the 
incipient negotiation of a treaty with Great Britain for the utter 
suppression of the African Slave Trade. These, taken separately 
or together, are steps of prudence and constitutional equity, and 
yet steps of incalculable promise for our country and the world. 
We may well discountenance and rebuke all ravings of a hot and 
inconsiderate haste by whomsoever manifested, while we thank 
God, rather, for these firm and solid, and real advances in the 
right direction. 

And not the least hopeful and thankworthy feature of this 



15 

whole matter is the general harmony of opinion and feeling in 
regard to these measures. 

Thousands of conservative men, and even representatives, of the 
border States have favored them, and yet they satisfy the better 
judgment of the great body of those at the North who have not 
been known as conservative. 

Indeed, there is something marvelous in the gradual but steady 
transformations and assimilations which have been going on in 
the popular mind during the year past. Do they not constitute 
the most striking feature of even these times'? We have not 
plunged into excesses by way of retaliation ; we have not placed 
the fire-brand in the hand of the negro ; we have not listened to 
the lectures and reproofs of Mr. Spurgeon or any other conceited 
Englishman on the subject of immediate and indiscriminate eman- 
cipation ; and yet we have greatly advanced as an entire people. 
It has been a healthy change. It has assimilated wide and extrav- 
agant diversities in the broader and deeper current of a true pro- 
gress. 

Indeed, apologists for slavery are now exceedingly rare. The 
morbid and absurd sensitiveness on the subject, once so common, 
has passed away. All look upon the system as a gigantic curse : 
— as the undoubted cause of this frightful war, and the prolific 
source of perpetual strifes so long as it shall exist in a civilized 
nation. All believe that in this country it has received its death 
blow, and that by its own treasonable and blood-stained hand. 
All rejoice in the hope that it will pass away — only praying that 
it may perish with the least possible shock to our national life, 
and with the least violence to the constitutional rights of the seve^ 
ral States. 

But our President, in his proclamation, has not forgotten the 
thousands who have fallen in this strife, and more especially the 
multitudes of sorrowing survivors. Over some of the brave 
dead, more particularly known to him, he has stood and shed the 
manly tears of a heartfelt sorrow. And he has called upon his 
countrymen in their various sanctuaries to offer their prayers unto 
God for that peculiar support and comfort which only He can 
give to the sick, the wounded, the widowed, the orphaned, and to 
all whose hearts are weighed down with the sorrow of bereave- 
ment. 

This is therefore not only a day of national thanksgiving, but 



16 

also a day of national condolence. The Christian grace of "prayer- 
ful sympathy (for not all sympathy knows how to pray) — the 
apostolic injunction to "rejoice with them that do rejoice and 
weep with them that weep" is, in its substance and spirit, spread 
out by a chief magistrate before a great nation. 

When has such an appeal from such a source been made before ] 

Oh ! let us rejoice together that there is progress in the world. 
Let us rejoice that, over all these mountains and vallies and prai- 
ries where once painted savages hideously danced around their 
trophies of scalps, the noble and benign ethics of the Gospel find 
to-day this marked and general witness and commendation. 

And we will include the suffering and the bereft even of our 
enemies in our sympathy and our prayers. Such is the true con- 
sistency of the Gospel's requirements. An enemy fallen is, in 
the eye of practical Christian charity, an enemy no longer. And 
the woes of our whole country (and it must still be one) rise up 
before us and touch our hearts to-day. I shall not be guilty of 
the bad taste of attempting to picture for mere effect the horrors 
of the battle-field. Most of us know little of their fearfulness, 
and we would not know. It is probably safe, however, to say 
that by the dire agencies of carnage on the field, and of sickness in 
the hospital, not less than twenty-five thousand American youth — 
North and South — have already perished, while perhaps a still 
greater number have been crippled or diseased for life. 

Some in this audience have lost near and dear friends in this 
sad struggle, and there is scarcely a city or village or town in the 
land that has not its desolate homes. For the unknown multi- 
tudes of sorrowing ones we offer our heartfelt prayers to God 
to-day. 

And we will not forget the request of our Chief Magistrate, 
that he and his counsellors, and our armies, may be sustained by 
n nation's prayers. More than a year since, as he left his western 
home, he made a similar request of his friends and fellow citizens, 
and we have had good reason to feel that it was not in vain. It 
affords us a lesson of encouragement, then, for the future. And 
as we look forward to the grave uncertainties that lie before us, 
we should not be too confident — save as our confidence is placed 
in God. We have had remarkable successes, we may meet with 
sad reverses, too. There is enough, certainly, in the posture of 
affairs to render us very hopeful : let us be also prayerful. 



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